I'm still running EM2 on Tiger/Power Mac G5 (without problems) and will eventually be getting a new Mac Pro (Snow Leopard or Lion). Leopard, Snow Leopard and presumably Lion do not play well with Nikon NEFs for reasons that I don't fully understand. Even if they did play well, Phase One have made it clear that the new EM (Media Pro) will not support Nikon NEF edits made in any software other than their own Capture One software. So I won't be purchasing Media Pro.

The question: once I get my new Mac (with Snow Leopard or Lion), can I create a drive partition that will start up the computer in Tiger OS so that I can run EM2? I've posed this question to different Apple tech support people who can't give a definitive answer ("it might work" or "I doubt it" or "I really don't know").

A MacWorld article today, Lion and the Rosetta dead-end, mentions creating a "dual-boot Mac" for people in similar situations as mine, but a commenter on the article says that a dual-boot Mac on a Lion-equipped Mac won't permit dual booting. So presumably a Snow Leopard-equipped Mac Pro would permit dual booting.

Update: I wrote to the author of the MacWorld article. He thinks a bootable Tiger partition would be possible on any newer Mac Pro (Core 2 Duo or better). He also said the comment re: Lion machines not permitting dual booting is premature until we actually have Lion Macs to test.

UPDATE: I've just been advised by another source that my proposed scenario is in fact not possible on a current (or future) Intel Mac. The only scenario in which this would work is if one had a very specific early Intel Mac (between 2006-2007) that came with a "Tiger for Intel" installation DVD. My version of Tiger is for PPC only.